 Hi, I'm Marjorie Aubert, I'm a freelance graphic designer, artist and developer based in Strasbourg. I'd like to present you the visual identity of the 18th edition of the Libre Software Meeting, led by Armonie Voviet-Anne and Jeremy Voshtovich, hosted by the Actube Association and held in Strasbourg from the 7th to the 12th of July 2018. It has been made in collaboration with Nicolas Chénet, who will join me to answer your questions later. It's an event similar to the LGM, a week where beginners and experienced technicians meet to question, develop and promote free digital tools in order to approach computer science and culture from another angle. As we never presented this work before, we take advantage of this LGM to make a quick tour of the graphic communication, but we'll not really have the time to make a user feedback of the different software used. As it was the LSM, it was fundamental for the coherence and the relevance of the subjects to realize the whole communication under free software. We have to initiate ourselves to liberal tools, alternative to the Adobe Suite that we were used to, to which we were fed in art school and in technical courses of applied arts. Despite often awareness of the free licenses issues, we had not yet passed the step of abandoning proprietary software. It's a difficult thing to give up software that you were trained on in school and have been using for almost a decade. This project has definitely pushed us over the edge and we now only use free OSs, free software and free formats and most of our work as artists is itself released under free licenses. The title of the edition was Digital Education Building Captivity or New Empowerment. To illustrate this year's theme, we worked on the media in order to show the complexity. We choose to make visible what is usually not, what we prefer to hide behind the user interfaces. The identity follows an experimental and pedagogical logic. We played with different layers of computer abstraction from low level language to the graphical interface. Depending on the media, the public perceives sometimes the information in clear, sometimes the source like the code, programming or software layer. The LSM 18 has been set up in three successive lines. First the call for participation, playing on the two layers, superposition, source and rendering one. Then the main website whose structure is similar to an OS with references to different software and whose style has been updated twice. The poster formats presented both elements of image editing or so-called responsive web principles, as well as algorithmic schemes. The idea, through these enigmatic visuals, was above all to intrigue the spectator by inviting him to try to understand the logic invested in the supports. For this edition, which raised the question of learning how to use computers, we wanted to be fairly realistic about the complexity that free software can induce and that regaining control over digital tools also requires a better understanding of how computers work. So we did hesitate to use the aesthetics of the code, the terminal, etc. Both to demystify it by changing its context and to explain it by sometimes making it more complex to read. The feedback was rather heterogeneous. Some people found the communication too cryptic, fearing that the public would not understand and others expressed opposite opinions amused by the information games that was comforting us in our choices. It would appear that there are two contradictory motivations within the Floss community. On the one hand, the community is working to make tools available, accessible and easy to use like proprietary software. And on the other hand, it wants to increase the skills of citizens so that they can keep control over their machines. Complexity is then sometimes the thing to absolutely erase, sometimes the thing to explain, include and spread. We prefer to take the bet not to hide complexity but rather to give it a prominent place, determined to apply the hacker philosophy in our identity, starting by stimulating the eye of the spectator to integrate this aesthetic in its visual landscape. On the technical side, we can say that we have not encountered any difficulties, but we have with the investment of reasonable efforts overcome them. The most prominent problems were undoubtedly related to printing constraints. As Inkscape does not support CIMYK, generating printable files involved systematically exporting the files in order to import them into Scribus. We did not use a so-called web-to-print tool because the various solutions of the time were obsolete. We preferred to work with Inkscape for most of the graphic creation and Scribus for the layout. The call for contributions was a simple website made from scratch and the OS-like was made on an OSM base and the CMS of OpenSUSE where only the administration part was kept. It is important that the organizers and partners, especially if they are defending an ethical event or product and even if they are simply sponsoring, realize what is at stake with free software which is involved in the choice of tools. To make things move forward, therefore a lot of pedagogy is needed. So we had to relearn, question our relationship to software but also interpolate our interlocutors like printers, city employees or communication officers on these issues and with whom we had no problems. The different web tools for collaborative work and storage allowed fluid exchanges and the open formats facilitated the adoption of the graphic charter by the different LSM teams. There was thus a lot of unity in the communication that was made through the very numerous supports that were websites, posters, flyer, leaflets, program banners for social networks, cap, t-shirts, badge, stickers and other signage elements. Even today when we talk about free software with different people from the art community and graphic design in particular, it is difficult to make people understand that it is quite possible to work without proprietary software and this without wasting time or losing too much hair. We hope that this is yet another example that will contribute to the valorization of the tools created by the Floss community. Thank you. Hello. Yeah, so if you have some questions, we will try to answer it. But I have a really bad accent. Hi. Summarize the work with the printers. Okay, so for our work with the printers, we were in contact with the printers from the Strasbourg University, so it's called the Dali, and we really had time with them to speak about what we want to do and so they were really open to help us, like they print us some symbols from colors so we can really look for what we are looking for, you know, to pass from the screen to the paper and so there were really generous and it was the first time for me that I have to work with so nice people and to have so much time to exchange. We were essentially working with those printers, so the university, but for the posters, but the program, so that was printed in a small shop and we didn't really exchange with that and the part was printed online? No. No, even the tarpaulins and everything was printed by them, yes, so it was nice. We didn't have troubles for the file's formats, it was okay. Even for offset, so that was cool. The troubles we had were really linked to when we were working on computers, so to, like we said, import files into Scribis because we had troubles with translations or font appearance, font style, font rendering issues and so it was more efficient to export them on Inkscape and then import them into Scribis. How did you get connected to the organization of this event if you're not using Floss tools before? Through the Hacker Space, we were involved in the Hacker Tube, so they asked us if we want to work on this identity, but the condition was to do it with free software as it was something we were thinking about, I mean, in our practices or in our everyday life that were questions that we were interested in and so we did yes, why not? We say yes, why not? And we were in the Floss community, but we were still using proprietary software because we didn't make the step and the LSM was the day to start working with lib tools. The big spies with lots of posters were these variants created by community or to automatically generate variants. Well, it was handmade mostly by Marjorie because she liked to work on a very numerous version of graphic tests, so yeah, no, it's a... And made work, right? Yeah, and made work only. Any ICC profiles issue? No, not at all, like I said, even for offset because I think printers work with quite old ICC profiles, so it was okay, we didn't have that much trouble. Do you have the impression that over the years, the ability of the web has decreased from mainstream websites like newspapers, state sports, portals and such? And how to fix this from a community perspective? What do you mean by your readability? As the complexity has increased from a user interface perspective? If it's from just a user interface complexity, yeah, maybe the readability has in fact decreased, but yeah, we're quite interesting in minimalist aesthetics even if it's sometimes quite complex, but yeah, we sometimes use some effects or some stuff like that, but we like to keep it simple and not laggy, buggy. We don't work with much animation or things like that, we like the original aesthetics of web as in brutalism or aesthetics like that that influences. What was the other part of the step from proprietary software to Floss? Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I think that, well, I used on the Adobe Suite before and I think I had Inkscape, I was at ease on the Inkscape interface just by using it today. I mean, and with Scribus we needed a bit more time, but that was really fast to switch from proprietary to Floss for me at least, but maybe the hard part was to first stop having the habits you have in proprietary software and maybe at the beginning you are afraid by, will it have the same, I mean, competencies and so on and really I didn't feel limited, I had the impression I could do the same so no, I didn't think that was a hard part of the work. Yeah, and I think the switches was very interesting because with free software you have to understand what you are doing and you have to search and this approach is way more interesting in the educational point of view and the more you use this software, the more you understand what's going on and that's quite interesting, but it's just the habits that is the problem, not the software because the software is great, it's working fine and totally fine but not the problem, it's just the habits and as the files, when you use free software there is a lot of possibility for the compatibility of the files, so yeah, maybe if we had troubles with the printers for the files and stuff like that maybe it would be more hard, but we didn't so Did you continue working with InScape and Scribus after the event? Yes, we're still using it as main tools as far away it has replaced what we used before so I choose to use Linux OS to install all this I changed my computer, I had Windows before and I decided to use Linux as well So I had to suppress the Windows part in the new computer I have because I didn't have success to escape the security because it was a recent model, so I had to suppress the Windows part with the Linux one and so I can't even use proprietary software So, it's done For me, it was the same I totally switched after the event and from this time I only used free software and Linux distribution and all We work as graphic designers and web designers Different programs I'm trying to do my first software also with GTK So we'll see What is your Linux distribution? I'm under Debian Yes, and I'm under Manjaro with the awesome Window Manager Debian Stretch I had the feeling that there is a community of free software graphic designer In Streisburg, am I right? Yes We know some teachers at the art school Well, they are also not a graphic designer but also a programmer We have friends in the art troupe that are working for Why are you a host? Or Alsace-Riseau-Nautra-Iren, which is a free access F-A-E Someone who gives you access to the internet Yes, and for us too Yes, there is a free community in Streisburg The Paris one is way bigger We also have friends there We work together on some projects But the community is growing These last years, there is a lot of new projects Like... How do you say it? I don't know With past ideas Proposeprint Proposeprint is a group of graphic designers that work on printing solutions Mostly web-to-print solutions Internet providers Thank you If using Debian, are you using any software or version, not part of Debian? I am thinking about app-image or snap package to use the latest version of software Yes, recently I had to install a snap to use the latest version of GIMP for a specific project, but I didn't use it before So yes, I have snap What's the program you are writing for? What... You're talking about the software I'm cutting? I think so It's a font editor I know there are a lot of font forge or true font But it's quite a specific font tool It's for drawing single stroke fonts And with special rendering for line joins, line caps and single punch So it's more like a project to understand how the rendering of vector graphics are made So it's a little software But I will try to do it as a real tool So yeah It's quite... Maybe one day I will try to contribute to InScape or other vector graphics software So I'm trying to learn that vector rendering But for now I'm working with the GTK Python version I'm not a C++ programmer, so I will have to learn the language also If you want to see our work, we will copy the links in the chat For Marjorie, it's marjorieaubert.com And for me it's autra.space So I will copy it Was there a reason for not using any photography image on the site? Well, yes, maybe at the beginning without to use images But it's not much that the problem is that there is no free images Data banks or so on, but really to illustrate At the same time that we will speak about an event about free software We will speak about education But for us it was hard to fix a point in all the universities it deployed So we choose to follow really the concept And text was an easy way to do it, I think And the prominent representation And also way less heavy FIs Yes, and maybe less problems Because we really worked in a rush We worked four months on this and two months at full time So maybe it was also a solution that let us blow a bit Because yes, we could work fast this way And also we were working at the same time on several files So for the sync speed, the sync speed through text And only vector graphic was the solution for a sync sync Thank you Are your tools for web design? For web design, it depends a lot We work, sometimes we just make websites just form scratch In pure HTML, CSS and stuff like that But we also work with CMS Like Grav Also with Pitten Flask for the back end And sometimes just some websites with Ginger as a template And the rest from scratch Some scripts, it depends on the project We don't use that much big frameworks or stuff like that Because there isn't quite always nothing for our specific needs So we have to build our own tools Because we often work on very specific projects Like artist websites or stuff like that So their needs are always special Yeah, Flask is great for hosting We are not the system administrators So we use for our own hosting solution Wainost Which is a self-hosted distribution based on Debian We are some friends working on it It's quite a big project and it's very useful It's intended to simplify the administration of server for people like us So yeah, we usually use that Yeah, Wainost Thank you Yeah, thank you And thank you for the great tools Yes, it was a pleasure Maybe we'll see each other at the next GM Next year Yeah Bye